Iran Ready for Gas Deal with Pakistan, without India
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
TEHRAN: Iran will sign a deal with Pakistan to sell gas to the neighbouring country, even if India, a third party to the deal, walked out, a news agency reported Iran’s oil minister as saying on Monday.
India stayed away from talks in Tehran on a proposed $7 billion pipeline in September, saying it wanted to agree transit costs through Pakistan on a bilateral basis first.
Iran Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said a delegation from Pakistan had arrived in Tehran for two days.
“Iran will sign a deal with Pakistan, if India does not take part in the project,” agency quoted Nozari as saying.
In July, Iran said India and Pakistan had accepted Iran’s demand for gas price reviews based on market changes, denying reports by some Indian newspapers that the pipeline talks had failed after Iran demanded a review every three years.
The pipeline would initially carry 60 million cubic meters of gas daily to Pakistan and India, half for each country. The pipeline’s capacity would later rise to 150 million cu meters.
Iran said it has completed 18 percent of the work for the pipeline to bring gas from its South Pars field to the Iran-Pakistan border.
Pakistan has yet to begin work on a 1,000 km (625 mile) stretch of the pipeline to link Iran with India.
Iran has the world’s second-largest gas reserves after Russia. But sanctions, politics and construction delays have slowed its gas development, and analysts say Iran is unlikely to become a major exporter for a decade.
Source: Geo News
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Pakistan, Iran to boost cooperation in power sector
ISLAMABAD, Dec 31: Pakistan and Iran agreed on Wednesday to boost cooperation in power sector and expedite implementation of existing projects, says a joint declaration signed by Iranian Deputy Minister of Energy Abbas Aliababi and adviser to the ministry of water and power at the end of a three-day visit by an Iranian delegation led by Minister of Energy Parviz Fatah.
Officials said the two sides also agreed to set up a ministerial-level monitoring committee to fix deadlines for power projects.
Mr Aliababi and Pepco managing director Fazal Ahmed Khan will be focal persons for implementation of the projects.
Pakistan has decided to import 1,000 MW electricity from Iran and a feasibility study will be carried out soon. The two countries agreed that provision for importing an additional 1,000 MW would be included in the feasibility report.
Iran has said that a dedicated gas-based power plant of 1,000 MW capacity near Zahidan may be made available for exporting power to Pakistan.The two sides have agreed that the transmission line for 100 MW will be completed by the end of 2009. They took note of slow pace of progress on projects for import of 100 MW of power for the Gwadar port and feasibility study for 1,000MW transmission line between Zahidan and Quetta.—Staff Reporter
Source: Dawn
http://www.dawn.com/2009/01/01/top6.htm